PMBoK7 Perspectives: Build Quality into Processes and Deliverables

PMBoK7 talks about maintaining focus on deliverable quality and the processes used to create those deliverables. Here’s an overview of what the Project Management Institute (PMI) refers to as the “dimensions of quality” that PMs must manage.?

Performance/Conformity. The products we produce need to perform in a way that meets specifications. They also need to conform to accepted norms and the expectations of stakeholders who capitalize on the delivered products. This means the project outcomes are achieved in a way that stakeholders expect and can handle without excessive education or unnecessary changes to existing business processes.

Reliability/Resilience. Project deliverables need to produce consistent outcomes. If it’s a product or hardware component, it needs to deliver consistent results and be resilient enough to recover from unexpected situations like power outages. If your deliverable is process-based, it should deliver the intended results in a wide array of circumstances where it might be applied -- without requiring workarounds or instance-by-instance judgment from stakeholders. In short, you get the outcome you intended, first time and every time.

Satisfaction/Uniformity. Your products should get positive feedback from stakeholders who use it or are affected by it. This means you need to understand the needs and expectations of every stakeholder group impacted by the project’s product. Satisfaction also needs to meet your stakeholders usual standards. For example, if you produce an IT system that has a drastically different interface than other products, the system will fail the uniformity test even if it works. The stakeholders won’t want to learn a whole new interface to use your product, even if it meets their specifications.

Efficiency/Sustainability. This means producing high-quality products that create desired outcomes efficiently, without requiring work for the stakeholders who use the product. The project outcomes should consistently reduce the work required to generate business value. The way the project’s products are built and used should also be kind to the environment, and not use excessive amounts of power, create undue waste, or rely on people to perform dangerous tasks such as exposing themselves to chemicals or radiation that could be harmful over time.

Have any tips for focusing on deliverable and process quality? Share with us in the comments section.

For more about quality management, check out Daniel Stanton’s Project Management Foundations: Quality course .

Coming Up

Watch for my latest course, Project 2021 and Project Online Desktop Client Essential Training.? Publication day is coming up!

_______________________________________

This article belongs to the?Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series , which has more than 14,000 subscribers. If you like this article, you can?subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.

Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.

_______________________________________